Peegs.com & Inside Indiana - No experience, no problem

May 28, 2009

Wes Scott
Peegs.com & Inside Indiana Staff Writer

Chris Hervey is one-of-a-kind for this season's Indiana baseball squad.

Sure he plays a mean right field and leads the team in a category nobody else wants to: hit by pitches. And of course he writes a blog on the IU baseball Web site as he has for much of the year. But that's not what makes Hervey so special and unique to this team.

The reason: He is the lone fielding senior on a team going to their first Regional tournament since 1996. Joe Vicini, also a senior, has made four relief appearances this year.

Like in nearly every other collegiate sport, there is normally one common factor with teams making the trip to Omaha, Neb. for the College World Series: experience. The younger players look to the older players for some advice. The 2008 winner, Fresno State, had eight seniors on the roster. Oregon State, the 2007 winner, had experience from nearly the entire team as they had won the title the year before in 2006.

But Indiana's team this season is a bit off of the norm. Instead of being loaded with older, more experienced seniors, the roster is booming with a variety of freshmen, sophomores and juniors that are all contributing.

Alex Dickerson, a true freshman, is perhaps the team's best offensive player this season. The 6-3 designated hitter has been thumping the ball all year, posting a team-best .379 batting average with 14 home runs and 57 RBIs, good enough for second on the team. He also won one of the conference's biggest honors, taking home the Big Ten Freshman of the Year award.

The California native credits his teammates' help and his spot in the batting order to his solid hitting so far this season.

"They have all been around it before and they have taught me a lot," Dickerson says. "Just the knowledge they can give you at the college level (helps) because there is a big difference between high school and college. And I was able to pick up on it quickly because I am batting behind Josh Phegley and I see a lot more pitches. Not just in pitch selection, but watching him play and watching the older guys play. It really just helps you out a lot."

Hervey and Phegley have taken over a leadership role this season and taken it upon themselves to really go out and help the younger players, something they really didn't receive in thire early years in Bloomington.

"The core groups of juniors that were freshmen as Coach (Tracy) Smith's first recruiting class, we knew how we struggled when we came in," Phegley says. "We are just trying to be the guys that support the freshman class as much as possible.

"A lot of us remember how it was coming in as freshmen and how much of a step it was. We are just trying to be as helpful as possible and that's one thing this team does well. I don't think we see class or rank here because we are all Hoosiers."

But being the team's catcher means more than just swinging a hot stick. It also means that you have to call the game from behind the plate. And with five freshmen pitchers making seven or more appearances this season, it has been a somewhat unique year for the catcher.

As the season went on, though, both he and the Hoosier team became more comfortable with the younger pitchers. In fact, head coach Tracy Smith decided to throw Matt Igel for the Big Ten Championship game against Minnesota. Igel, who was making his first start of the season, held the potent Gopher offense in check, going five innings and giving up just two earned runs in the victory.

"The freshmen have stepped right in and fit in perfectly right when they got here," Phegley says. "Everyone contributes equally. It's not like we're an upperclassmen-dominated team or anything. Everyone has been contributing. I mean, we started a freshmen pitcher on the mound for the championship game of the Big Ten Tournament and he pulled through for us."

And the youth movement wasn't more apparent than during the conference tournament. Five of the nine starting fielders for a majority of the four-game series were sophomores or freshmen. Along with Igel, freshmen pitcher Blake Monar shut down Ohio State to get the Hoosiers into the championship game.

Smith, too, has put his faith into the younger guys. He made relatively no trips to the pitcher's mound during the four-game tournament run and had little advice to offer when he did.

"The only reason I went out there was to get on TV a little bit, too," Smith jokes. "When the guys are hot, it's like hay in the barn. You just let good players play and let guys do their thing. They are confident right now and I will do is screw it up. So I'm just going to let these guys roll.

"There were a couple times out there with the young guys on the mound that I just go out there and say 'Hey, just calm down a little bit, do what you do and let your defense work.' Really, there wasn't a lot of coaching going on."

When Indiana travels to Louisville to take on the Cardinals Friday, though, they know what awaits them. U of L is coming off their first ever 40-win season and two victories over the Hoosiers this year. They have also made the postseason the past two seasons, including a trip to the College World Series in 2007.

But the Hoosiers know what needs to be done come game time on Friday at 7 p.m. and it will take input from all classes and postions.

"All I can tell you is we are going to go out and play baseball like we have the past couple of weeks," sophomore outfielder Kipp Schutz says. "Whenever we do that, we go out and play well."

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